To Do Well in School,

Kids Need Food Seven Days a Week

By Amy Ginsburg

A native of Montgomery County, Amy Ginsburg has been the Executive Director of Manna Food Center for five years.  For more than two decades, Amy has raised funds for and led a variety of nonprofit agencies, including workplace giving, advocacy, and health and human services organizations.

Montgomery County is not the first geographic area that comes to mind when thinking about childhood hunger; however, one in four Montgomery County Public School students qualifies for a free or reduced price meal (FARMS.)  If you ask the question, “how many MCPS students have ever qualified for FARMS,” the answer is even more surprising – 37% of all MCPS students have received free or reduced price meals at some point in their academic life

Schools provide breakfast and lunch during the week, but what happens on the weekend?  For many, weekends are a frightening time of empty pantries and empty stomachs, and come Monday, students are far from ready to learn their multiplication tables or discuss The Great Gatsby.

Manna Food Center, the chief provider of emergency and supplemental food in Montgomery County, was determined to help as many hungry students as possible receive the food they need to succeed in school … and in life.  Four years ago Manna developed its innovative and successful Smart Sacks program.  Through Smart Sacks, food insecure elementary school children receive a backpack stuffed with a dozen kid-friendly and nutritious items on Friday so they have food to nourish them on the weekend when there are no school meals.

Smart Sacks teams each local elementary school with a partner organization, usually a corporation or community group.  Manna supplies the kid-friendly food, the partner organization provides the volunteer labor, and the schools distribute the sacks of food to children in need.  The partner organization picks up a month’s worth of food then brings the food to their office.  Each week, volunteers from that organization fill anywhere from 15 to 60 backpacks with juice boxes, peanut butter, soup, fruit cups, crackers, etc., then deliver the filled backpacks to their school.  Each Friday, school staff gives the backpacks to children in need.  The cycle begins again the following week and continues through the entire school year.

Smart Sacks is not only a proven method of distributing food directly to hungry children; it is also an extraordinary vehicle for businesses and community groups to help some of Montgomery County’s most vulnerable residents in a tangible, hands-on manner. Through Smart Sacks, hundreds of people have found a meaningful way to give back to their community without leaving the office

Besides the most important outcome of providing weekend meals to hungry children, Smart Sacks has achieved significant ancillary outcomes.  Donors of both food and funds support the program generously, and it has provided entrée into corporations that resulted in increased corporate donations and food drives.  Smart Sacks has also been a magnet for media attention that has helped Manna tell the great untold story of the prevalence of poverty and hunger in one of the nation’s richest counties.

As noted by staff from Harmony Hills Elementary School, “It makes a difference because now a student can receive the food they need to continue to grow and succeed in school.  It makes a difference because even though our parents may have lost their jobs or their hours may have been cut, their child is able to receive healthy snacks. They are still able to eat what they need to be able to focus and learn in school.  These children are given the opportunity to succeed and to achieve just like the rest of the children in the school.  They are being given the support they need to progress and move ahead academically.”

Starting with just one elementary school and partner organization providing food to fifteen children weekly, Smart Sacks now has thirty-two participating elementary schools and partner organizations feeding more than 1,000 children each week.  While so many strive to break the often intractable cycle of poverty, Smart Sacks truly offers a critical opportunity for the community, schools, and Manna to do just that.  Children who participate in Smart Sacks come to school ready and able to learn on Monday. They are children who will receive the education they need to climb out of poverty and never again feel the pangs of hunger.

MB&TPI

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